


Home Is Where the Heart Is

by waywardriot



Series: Soriku Week 2018 [2]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: M/M, SoRiku Week 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-14 16:02:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16915953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waywardriot/pseuds/waywardriot
Summary: Home isn't always a place. Sometimes it's a person.Soriku Week Day 2: Familiarity





	Home Is Where the Heart Is

**Author's Note:**

> writing this was kinda weird, idk how well it fits the prompt, but i tried!

Riku thought he never knew _home_.

Sure, he had a house. He had a place where he slept and ate and lived, but it was never home; it wasn’t familiar, constantly feeling like he was intruding even when he held the key to it in his hands. No matter where he went on the islands, there was always a sense of not belonging; he felt several degrees away, like he was watching everyone on the other side of the glass. He watched people go through normalcy—saw people get married, people have kids, people die. It brought him an overwhelming sense of despair, thinking about going through the motions that would never bring him happiness.

That was why he yearned to explore the worlds so badly. He figured, if everyone was supposed to have a home, his had to be somewhere out there. There had to be a place in the universe he could simply be and feel like he belonged for once. Once he left his home, the only place he had ever known, he didn’t even miss it. Maybe that was the darkness speaking from deep inside him, clutching his heart, but the way he felt proved it—the islands weren’t his home. Maybe he was a bad son, but he didn’t feel the echoes of the islands in his heart.

Still, as he landed in a new place, there was a chasm in his chest, his heart beating against his open ribcage. This was not where he was meant to be, not yet.

The beginning of this journey, this fruitless quest to find the familiar—it was leading Riku to one conclusion, the one thing he should have known all along. No one ever told him that home wasn’t always a place. It could be a person.

Sora was his home, and he had always had it at arm’s reach.

He had spent years lost, succumbing to the darkness that thrummed from the inside out. He lost sight of the things that mattered most in a futile effort to get what he wanted.

Sora had been the light to bring him out, a light he had lost sight of in his foolishness—something he would never forgive himself for doing. Still, even being locked in the Realm of Darkness, a place filled with his greatest fears, something he had to fight day after day, he knew it would be okay when he locked eyes with Sora. Sora was the light in his darkness, and he knew he could trust him to watch after Kairi, to watch after everything. Sora was the constant, the familiar one who he knew would be there when he returned; he would bet his life on Sora handling what he couldn’t.

When Riku accepted the darkness and surrounded himself with it, it was all for Sora. He didn’t voice it, but he was petrified of it; the darkness was a cold terror that wrapped around his heart, squeezing it until he couldn’t breathe or think or do anything but reach for the surface. But deep in his heart, he knew he would do anything for his home—for Sora. If Sora didn’t wake up, he didn’t know what he would do; was he supposed to wander the worlds for the rest of time, looking for the familiarity that didn’t exist for him anymore? Would there truly be a point to his suffering if Sora wasn’t there to pick him up at the end?

Riku felt endlessly guilty for the things he had said to Roxas and Xion—his words unforgivable, and he would give anything to apologize to them, but he knew they were completely necessary. The choice between a fake existence, a puppet, and _Sora_ was an incredibly easy decision. He would still feel guilty, but he would do it again in a heartbeat. He knew it was horrible, it was the darkness winding around him and whispering in his ear, but he would give people up again and again for Sora.

When Riku saw Sora for the first time in so long, he wanted to weep; Sora himself wept, and Riku hears his broken voice echoing in his dreams. It took everything in him not to sweep him up in his arms and kiss the hurt away, but he knew their work was not done. They would get the chance to rest one day, but today was not that day. Their fight was not over, but Riku felt that much more hopeful, knowing that Sora was there. He would defeat a thousand Organization members for Sora, for his home.

When it was all done, when they were on the beach together and Riku was ready to pass out, he still knew it would be okay. The Realm of Darkness wasn’t nearly as terrifying as it had been the first time—it simply made him nervous, rather than feeling like he was dying. He honestly thought they could be trapped there for a very long time, but it was okay with Sora by his side. When Sora smiled at him, he was ready to walk to the ends of the Realm for him.

When the door to Destiny Islands opened back up, the only way Riku could describe it was as Sora. It was the light at the end of the tunnel leading him to where he was meant to be.

But where he was meant to be was not the islands.

Sure, the islands were familiar, in the most literal sense of the world. He missed the play island and their paopu tree. He missed playing in the water. He missed racing with Sora and laughing with Kairi about Sora’s antics. He missed watching the sunsets, basking in the last warm rays next to his best friends on the tree trunk. 

Notice how rather than a place, all those things involve Sora?

Riku finally did.

He traveled to the ends of the universe and back, all to find the arms of the one who was always there.

When he got to be alone with Sora, weeping into his shoulder and clutching his shirt, he felt more secure than he had in ages; no matter how sad and how terrible he felt, Sora’s beating heart grounded him. He sobbed out apologies, and Sora’s bright smile and hands in his hair reassured him. He kissed the tears off his cheeks and held him, never faltering or doubting his feelings for his best friend. 

Sora always knew Riku would come back to his home, and he did.

With Sora’s hands on his skin and his voice in his ears, Riku knew he was home and knew Sora felt the same.


End file.
